Archive for March, 2010

I’ve recorded a handful of cover songs by various artists. Some were my own original take on a song such as “Tomorrow Never Knows“, “Kiss The Girl” and “Boys Of Summer” and some were painstakingly faithful reproductions such as “Because“. Some people may wonder, “Why bother re-recording someone else’s song? Especially if you’re not doing anything original but just meticulously copying the original artist.” Sometimes it’s a bit of a hybrid such as “Eleanor Rigby” which faithfully reproduces all the individual parts but replaces the string quartet with all guitars instead.

My newest cover is mostly a faithful reproduction of Butch Walker’s “Ships In A Bottle” with a little bit of my own flavor in it. I think Butch is one of the best singer/songwriters making music today so why do my own version? Well for one, it’s a tribute to him. Secondly, it’s just fun. And thirdly it’s amazingly educational. Breaking down a song, finding all the little hidden parts and nuances, listening to how it’s mixed, the effects used, the equalization across the frequency spectrum, and all the million little details of a recording educates me through osmosis. I learn to be a better producer, engineer, and songwriter not to mention honing my playing and singing chops.

These songs are only available to stream at the moment because I’m still working my way through learning the legalities and such of covering other people’s music, therefore, while I have bought some limited rights to these songs, I don’t feel comfortable offering them for download, much less for sale. If you like my versions, I highly encourage you to go out and buy the original artists’ recordings of them! Thanks for listening!

This song came on my iPod a couple of days ago and it just struck me. I had to learn it. Something about it just really resonated with me. I say again that Muse are one of the best bands making music today. In fact, ever.

I’m finding doing these videos fun but also enlightening. It feels a bit like performing naked. Just me, a guitar and a camera. It’s very much a feeling of being “under the microscope”. It’s not like when I record and can take my time and get things just right to my satisfaction and it’s also not like performing live where there’s the energy of the crowd and the venue and lights and all that. So in general I find myself not entirely happy with what gets recorded. It’s very humbling. However, hopefully doing these videos will improve me as a musician and performer. The important thing is that I’m doing something and not sitting on my ass thinking about doing something. And I have all of you to thank. Seeing my Facebook page jump up to 200+ fans was inspiring and the feedback I get from you and knowing that there’s at least a handful of people who care enough to to watch these means a lot to me. Music is somewhat symbiotic. Of course I do it for myself, but if no one cared or wanted to listen to me, I think it would lose a lot of it’s magic. I think almost all performers do it, at least to some degree, to entertain other people.